The Banksia canei was named after a long-time school councillor Bill Cane, who was a local botanist.

"They're using Cancún as a basis for development, and they're not going to let the same thing happen here," said Randy Bowser, a local botanist active in environmental issues.

It is these botanicals - and the two local botanists who collect them - that inspire its name.

Many other noted local botanists had studied the area including Leo Grindon and Thomas Rogers.

A local botanist told me it was pipsissewa, which my dictionary says is wintergreen.

The newest worry for local botanists is a native of Asia informally called mile-a-minute weed.

A local botanist has built Shangri-La Alpine Botanic Garden, which employs two dozen people and shares profits with the local village.

In 1815, he married Margaret Smith, the daughter of a local botanist and florist.

But the pressures on urban vegetation are arguably as urgent: preliminary work by local botanists suggests that more than a third of the species on Queens and Staten Island a century ago have disppeared.

On 21 May 2007 the reserve was renamed The Hector Wilks Reserve in memory of this local botanist who had been involved with the reserve from its inception.